Oshkosh365

Hello all, today I went online to check the status of my EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) membership renewal. When I got there I was prompted to sign up for the NEW members only site Oshkosh365. I did hoping it would streamline the "checking" process. I found tons of koul stuff especially the weather graphs. It is worth signing up for the site just to see those. Although I did not have time to look through everything, it looks to be a very helpful site to browse around for us aspiring pilots as time permits in the future. Anyway just thought I would put a plug in here for them for anyone interested in flying who is not a member of EAA my advice would be to join you can do so here if you desire. It is only $40 per year, I don't get any of that $$ by the way but if you mention my name Phillip J. Gray maybe they would send me some coupons for use at their annual fly-in next year (I can always hope), and includes a professional monthly periodical chock full of aviation information, online members only resources just to name a couple. In the short amount of time I had to look at the site today before I rushed off to work I saw quite a few things I would want to delve deeper into in the coming days and weeks. I will keep you posted as to some of these interests as I look into them, OR you could just sign up yourself and leave me comments about the things you found interesting. That's all for today so Fair winds and following seas to you all until next post.

Egad, it has been a while since I posted anything on this blog. I wish I knew how to add video to this blog. Because the major reason for the delay in writing has been the rearranging of my home library / office. If I could show a before and after picture or video then you would understand. The next time my father is here I'll get him to remark on the subject for everyone's enjoyment. He can be a very funny guy from time to time so he will probably be able to comment humorously about the mess I had before compared to the mess it is now. It has taken over three weeks to get to the current level of organized chaos I am now enjoying. I even found the plastic models of two WWII airplanes my daughter's boyfriend gave me for Christmas last year. Wait where did those go again??? Blast it all! Well I'm sure they will turn up the next time I decide to rearrange my mess. I continue to study, when I'm not rearranging, how to build and run websites for fun and profit. Well at least for profit, it is hard work. My father asked me to help him get something up and running and thought that I should do something for myself since I would be learning how to do it for him. My goal now is to help him get a web business, or web businesses off the ground and simultaneously do the same thing for myself in an effort to FUND my eventual airplane purchase and flight schooling. Wish us luck. To quote Mr Wayne Gretzky "You miss all the shots you do not take." So I (We) will be doing that as a means to an end, getting my posterior into the pilots seat of my very own airplane.
My father and I are taking a set of lessons on building web based income streams and one of the lessons had "GET ORGANIZED" as its main theme so I decided if I was gonna walk the walk I had better start somewhere. Everything was so spread out, messy, and disorganized that accomplishing anything seems to require an act of congress and some bail out money to the local refuse removal service. I had been wanting to make my setup more user friendly, I am after all an APPLE Macintosh fan the most user friendly computer on the face of the planet. When I started rearranging everything was on an island of tables in my office which had stations all around it where I could do most anything as long as I got up and moved around the room all the time. It was not very efficient when working on two things which were on opposite sides of the island. Now "I" am the island in the CENTER of everything and merely need to turn my head to see how everything I'm working on is coming along. Since I have been working on this rearrangement project this blog has suffered a little bit. Hopefully soon the transformation of my work space will be history and I will be able to spend more time on Logging via this blog my progress toward my goal of flight. So until next time Fair winds and following seas to you all, reach for your goals.

Visitin

I've spent the last couple days visiting my parents at their home (I'm writing this on their computer). My father and I have been doing our best to drive each other crazy with "who knows the most about something we are both ignorant about" discussions. Actually, I planned on coming down to help confuse him about how to get a web site up and operating for the business he is wanting to initiate. I know very little about it but apparently this is tons more than he knows. He has been studying and fiddling with Blogs and web design software and I have also been studying and fiddling (mostly fiddling) with some the same things online in order to lower our ignorance level. In fact the reason I am mentioning it here is because this Blog is a direct result of our "DOING" something recommended by the plethora of GURU's out there who teach other people how to get up and running with a Web Based business. My fathers passion is health and nutrition which is why his Blog MAXwellness covers this type of informative information. Click the link and visit his Blog as I'm sure he would be thrilled to help some people with the GREAT information he studies and posts in simple down to earth everyday English. My mother, who is doing very well physically compared to a year ago, is feeling great and probably still with us today because my father left his job and took on the task of getting her the nutrition and care she needed to have such a wonderful recovery. To give you some idea of what I'm talking about, last year she slipped into the floor from the bed one day and could not even get up, her affect was generally flat, and she was suffering from tremendous amounts of pain. My father (who is not a doctor) researched her conditionS online found treatments for each symptom he could identify. Today she walks with minimal help using a cane, drives to visit her friends home, and lastly and most importantly laughs, talks, and carries on with people fully engaged in the conversation. It is truly remarkable what he has done and how well she has responded. ALL the protocols he gets are from cross referencing several resources (doctors, nurses, etc.) and then plotting a plan of action which gets results. As I said before he is not a doctor but he certainly missed his calling on that one. So in conclusion here today, if it were not for my parents I would not be here to write this wonderful Blog about airplanes and flying (usually). So visit dads site (MAXwellness) and send him and even my mom a note after you read his Blog. Fair winds and following seas to you all until next time.

Today's activities

I spent the morning today SLOWLY advancing towards my goal of learning to fly. FIRST I Googled airplanes. My intent being to search withing results and start researching what type of airplane I want to someday build. I got a little side tracked though when I saw a "How It Works" article on how airplanes worked. I followed the link to see if there was anything there I had not yet seen hoping to find out some NEW information. Although I would change a small portion of the grammar and some basic scientific explanations, it was an OK elementary article. It even had a theory of flight that I have never heard of until I read the article so I DID learn something NEW, COOL. If you would want to go there the URL is http://science.howstuffworks.com/airplane.htm. During the course of reading these article pages I found several other links to other sites which may become invaluable during my QUEST to build an airplane and learn to fly. One such link is to a Web site designed to simply walk you through the steps of becoming a pilot. It is produced by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) which is an organization I heard about before, am not currently associated with, but intend to join in the near future. That URL is http://www.aopa.org/letsgoflying/ready/steps/index.html. I also followed a couple other links which are aeroplane flying and building in nature which I won't go into any explanation of but will provide the URLs to here: http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=airplane.htm&url=http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/foil2.html and also http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=airplane.htm&url=http://www.fluent.com/. I also got off track and followed this link http://www.homemadeenergy.org/?hop=cyprusmete which has little if anything to do with flying BUT might be something I can do on the financial front to help FUND further endeavors with my dream of flying, since the BIGGEST obstacle to getting anywhere on this program right now seems to be the funding of it! I feel like progress has been made today already and so I stopped by to let you know about it. I'm gonna eat now and then get back to my original goal of deciding on a list of airplanes I would like to build, and if I get that accomplished then I'll come back and update this Blog on the progress. Until then fair winds and following seas to you all!

Priorities

In order to accomplish anything, priorities must be set. For me to reach my goal I must do this also. When reading any map you HAVE to know two things: where you are; and where you want to be. So today I am going to briefly describe where I want to be and what I need to accomplish in order for me to reach that goal. I want to save the analysis of just WHERE I currently am for the next post. I want decide on a type and style of airplane to build. 1) I want to purchase that aircraft kit without borrowing any money. 2) I want to build the airplane and on this Blog or on a web site document the progress of construction, to include not only milestones but also any setbacks, do overs or what not that might rear their ugly head. 3) I also want to begin and complete my private pilots license training to coincide with the completion of the airplane I choose to build. Although I will need an clear assessment of where I am, I believe that each of the three above goals will need further refining. For instance number one seems to be very simple but it will involve two things currently not available to me: CASH, and deciding which aircraft out of literally thousands I like that I want to build. It would also help to have a PLACE to build said aircraft which I currently do not have. This means that construction of a garage or barn will need to occur before I even order the aircraft kit. If you are reading this Blog you can most likely tell that I am fairly new to the idea of blogging. I really don't know all the tricks of getting information coordinated for such a program. I intend to learn as I go and get better as time goes by. I hope to learn to incorporate short videos and maybe power point presentations into the Blog in order to SHOW the progress, but I don't want the production of such to slow down progress of completing the main objective of building an airplane and flying it. The third objective, which as stated above says complete as I build the plane, MIGHT be the actual FIRST goal I start on and complete in order to show progress toward the final goal of flying my own home built aircraft as quickly as possible. I might also enlist the help of my Blog readers to CHOOSE the type of aircraft I build out of the final list of 10 aircraft I would like to build. I hope this Blog inspires others to begin taking action to accomplish what ever goals or dreams they might have been putting off up til now, and as always fair winds and following seas to you all.

Life

Days like the past couple just really irritate me. I get up with the greatest of intentions of GETTING SOMEWHERE on the never ending list of things to do, only to find that at the end of the day I have not only marked anything off the existing list of To Do's but have added half a dozen more that I forgot about. I guess that the only BONUS to this is that the mire of OTHER stuff I found myself clogged up in had several things that needed done, and that although some ended up on my To Do list I got some of the others taken care of before I quit for the day.
As an example I had about 3 things I wanted done by the end of the weekend.First on the list for Saturday and Sunday was to research some more information about setting up online business web pages. Just before that though I decided I needed to pay the monthly bills (not on the list for this weekend) from the checkbook, BIG MISTAKE. By the time I had finished this (it took both days and part of today) I had researched some discrepancies I found that needed attention because some information on some of the bills changed. I ended up needing to find out how to lower them in the future so I can eat something other than rice and beans (don't get me wrong I like rice and beans, just not if I HAVE to eat them all the time) for the next several months until this economy thing rights itself. Web Business research took a back burner (I got no futher this weekend) and is still prominently displayed at the top of my To Do list which NOW includes three other bills I need to chase down information on to cut costs here around the house. So what has this got to do with airplanes and flying you ask? Well, everything and nothing! I'll let you figure it out how it is nothing but the everything part is because I have been doing this to my wanting to fly for as long as I can remember wanting to learning to fly. I have it on the list of things To Do but more pressing things always seem to get in the way before I ever get to it on the list! It gets depressing sometimes! Makes me want to vent in a BLOG or something, HEY now there is something else I can mark off my list? I'm going to refocus and hope this rant reminds some of you of the need to refocus your efforts on what you really want and get the NEEDS out of the way and OFF of the list so you can do what ever it is you really WANT to do! Well I feel better now, not so sure I will stay that way but for now good bye, fair winds and following seas.

Airplanes

I have model airplanes on the large headboard of my bed. How lucky can you get when your wife allows something like that? She is the greatest wife to me in the world, the only one but lets not go there! She even gave me a 16" wingspan B-29 model airplane alarm clock which sits on our bedroom light stand! My computers have airplane pictures for the screen savers where possible. I also have several models I have yet to put together, you guessed it all airplanes. I have quite a few books on airplanes, flying, flight mechanics and various other aircraft related subjects. I belong to a GREAT organization I was introduced to by a couple of friends of mine, S. Brown and his father, called the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). I get the magazines every month and read them cover to cover several times.
My Gateway computer, hey I'm a Mac guy all the way and have NEVER bought a Windoze machine but this one was given to me, has Microsoft Flight Simulator on it and I'm working my way through COMPUTER Ground school and flying lessons. My daughters got the program for me for Christmas, Yes I say CHRISTMAS, last year to go with my free Gateway. I have a really old Macintosh Plus computer with MS Flight Simulator on it which works for taking off and flying around, but with only black and white graphics it is extremely hard to land a plane on that system. Why Microsoft won't support their flight simulator on the new Macs any more is anyone's guess but they don't so I'm stuck where I am at this point. BREATH, LOL!!!
On this BLOG I intend to expound on some of the PLUSES and MINUSES of the different aircraft I would like to build (which are way more in number than I will ever be able to do unless I win the lottery, I don't buy lottery tickets though) in order to talk myself into getting one picked and in the works before I die. I might point out that ever since I wanted to fly I have wanted to build my own plane. I get the EAA magazine every month and it always features several people each month who completed their homebuilt aircraft project and a short paragraph about the said building process. It NEVER ceases to amaze me how many of these projects took MANY years (some >20) from start to finish to complete. So there is always hope. Now that I have told how I became interested in building and flying my own plane, I hope some other people will stop by and journey with me to that smae destination. I would also LOVE to welcome anyone who has travelled this course before to step in and provide any positive feedback and encouragement they can to me and my fellow travelers. Bye for now, fair winds and following seas to you all.

Second Post

I became interested in flying from being fascinated with the model airplanes which flew at a park near my home and from having been introduced to bird watching by my father. My dad Willard and I would spend quite a bit of time bird watching in the woods around our home and all over Kentucky. Although I like all kinds of birds my favorites were the raptors which soared high in the sky all the time. Also I spent quite a bit of time on Sunday afternoons watching the (then to me) elderly gentlemen fly their radio controlled planes. I would sit for hours watching them and asking them questions about how to get started with my own plane. I took the plunge, used some of my paper route earnings and bought a couple kits. A small one to finish first and learn to fly and a larger one to have ready to go once I learned to FLY the cheap one. The process took a couple years and never quite got completed before I enlisted in the US Navy after high school. At that point I had nowhere to keep my projects so I sold them to other enthusiasts.
I never have lost interest in flying but as I look back I did not take advantage of a couple opportunities I had in my life to spend the time and money to get my private pilots license. There was always something ELSE to do and spend money on and I never HAD all the money, or time, at any given time to complete the training (is there ever). So in this respect I sort of let myself down reflecting here slightly on the past.
Fast forward from then to today and I still make excuses like I don't have the money or time, which is true, but I really want to learn to fly so I have decided to start this blog to help me FOCUS on getting these obstacles taken care of and get my hind end into a plane and start flying. If you decide to join me then I hope you enjoy the ride. Fair winds and following seas to you all, and may God bless both these endeavors, flying and blogging!

Getting started

I have wanted to learn to fly since I was 14 years old. I also love computers and technology and thought I would like to try this blogging thing to see how many other people might share my passion for learning to fly while I was at it. This is my very first blog post and I'm just thrilled to get this thing started.